ACIM Mentor

If you received a post called "The Fact of Spirit" in your email it was sent in error. This post was meant for October 31st and has been deleted so there will be no place to post any comments until then. Sorry for the error. Love and Peace,  Liz

A few weeks ago I wrote about the ego-identifier (read it here ). It was the label I gave to the part of my mind that over-learned the ego (personal thought system). It was the last to let it go. It was the most resistant to it being gone. But I soon dropped the concept. It was useful while it lasted. I learned a lot about this mind. But after seeing into the deepest, darkest depths of its distrust of Truth (boy, that was uncomfortable!) and its valuing of guilt (as the ego taught it that guilt was the “proof” the ego was real), I realized I had no more use for the concept. If I continued to give it attention I would “recreate the beast (ego)”. A client of mine told me about another mentor of hers who dropped the ego. She described the stage afterward as the ego’s momentum winding down. It’s like when you stop peddling a bicycle, the bicycle continues to roll forward on its own until it comes to a full stop. I find this description better describes the wispiness of the remna...

The hardest thing to convey about this huge shift in my mind is how the new life that has come to it and is expressed through the self is not a continuation of the old life that fell away with the ego (personal thought system). It is a whole new life, inward and outward. Sometimes I wonder, “Why Australia?” And the answer is, “Because that’s where this life is.” I might as well ask of the old life, “Why the US?” It’s just where that life was. I have had the sense since this new life broke upon me (which is what it felt like) that I am moving into a life that is already whole and complete. I do not have to make it. I just have to walk into it. It is given , not as in “something is giving it to me”, but as in, “it is already established”. I have a deep sense of recognizing this experience. This is the view in Higher Awareness. Where the Awareness of Truth (Holy Spirit) is found within and is universal (the same in everyone) Higher Awareness is the label I give to the individ...

Thirty-four years ago I experienced my first mystical Holy relationship. I knew then that the Holy relationship, if allowed to become fulfilled, would result in a 180 degree turn in my experience of a personal relationship. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what I was seeing. I couldn’t have said then that it corrected cause and effect. But I did sense it would undo something fundamental to the ego’s (personal thought system’s) way of perceiving. And at that time that was my way of perceiving. In the mystical Holy relationship, instead of seeing another as the source (cause) of Love (effect), you recognize Love is the Source (cause) of your relationship (effect) with the other. Sounds great, doesn’t it? And it is! It is Joyous for a relationship that expresses Love to show up.   But therein lies the threat to the ego: The relationship is simply here, already whole and complete. The ego teaches you to make relationships to get Love and/or to express your personal desires...

A few weeks ago I wrote about the part of my mind that overlearned the ego (personal thought system), was the most attached to it, and was the last part to acknowledge that it was gone. (Click here to read the article). I called this part of my mind the ego-identifier. The ego-identifier still holds the lessons from the ego dear. It thought the self and the ego were its identity; it thought its whole purpose was to identify with the self and ego. But it is really a part of my mind and so it is capable of unlearning those lessons and integrating with the rest of my mind, which is rising to a Higher Awareness. I’ve learned more about the ego watching the ego-identifier being undone than I could when the ego was still a part of my mind. I refer to the time when the ego (personal thought system) dropped but I didn’t know it as the “Mansion and shack” time. The ego fell when I felt, truly, that I was done with pain. It was not a rancorous feeling; just a fact. But I went into shoc...

Last week I wrote how the mystical Holy relationship corrects cause and effect. Instead of seeing another as the source (cause) of Love (effect) for you, you recognize Love is the Source (cause) of your relationship (effect).   Another way to say this is that the mystical Holy relationship’s purpose is not to cause Love, but to express Love. Part of correcting cause and effect is redefining the purpose of everything from cause to expression. What happens in time is not to bring a certain end into existence (salvation, atonement, undoing, etc). That end has already occurred. The moment the idea of not-Truth arose, it was undone by Truth’s all-encompassing nature. So time does not bring about the Undoing (Atonement). It expresses it. In time, it seems like the idea of not-Truth arose long ago and its undoing is in some indefinite future. Time takes an idea that was over in a moment and tells it as an unfolding story. So the Undoing is always happening, only in slooooooow motion...

In my first mystical Holy relationship with E thirty-four years ago, I experienced great joy, but I also sensed the “cost” of the Holy relationship. The cost was the special relationship. The cost was the ego (personal thought system). I couldn’t characterize then the shift that the Holy relationship would bring. I could only sense it. But I now know that the Holy relationship corrects the confusion of cause and effect, completely undoing the special relationship. The special relationship is the ego’s greatest deception. The experience of the ego is lack, and the special relationship is supposed to supply that lack. Mostly, we don’t think in those terms. But we do feel that the special relationship will save or fix us or make us whole somehow. The idea is that this other person, be it parent, sibling, friend, lover, or partner will supply our lack. We are drawn to them because we see them as the source of Love, Which is an experience of Wholeness. In the special relationsh...

From what I’ve read and heard, when the ego (personal thought system) falls from a mind, what follows is a unique experience. Some things seem universal, like emptiness and varying degrees of disorientation. Also, acclimating to the absence as well as the Peace that comes. But exactly what process a mind embarks on to recognize what happened and to adjust to it seems pretty idiosyncratic. So don’t expect that the particulars that I write about my experience will be your own. I went into three and a half years of shock after the ego fell from this mind. Three years in, the emptiness, which I did not yet understand, became a delicious Spaciousness. This was filled with a Golden experience of Love. But I didn’t understand why this was happening. I didn’t dare think the ego had fallen. That seemed, well, egotistical! And, moreover, I was still having egoic responses. Only those had become very shallow. The events I’ve written about lately that began four months ago, however, made...

Often I have written that this path has not unfolded the way I thought it would. I had expectations based on what I read, but had not yet experienced. So they were formed through the filters of my past and what I only understood so far. Other expectations were formed in guilt and fear. And still others were based on the specific experiences of others, which were never meant to be applied to everyone. There was a time when my study was all in my intellect and I pushed away my mystical experiences. Intellectual study led to new concepts, but brought no peace and no clarity. Only experience would bring peace and clarity. I eventually learned to let my experiences, rather than what I read in a book, lead the way. And only then did I really understand what I had read. Thankfully, miraculously, my willingness to experience for myself overrode my expectations. And this has led to shattered expectations, but fascinating, illuminating experiences. My recent articles rattled some o...

It’s no surprise that last week’s article ( Committed to the Spiritual Process ) rattled a lot of readers. Expectations of what happens when the ego (personal thought system) falls away were shattered. Personal values were challenged. As I mentioned in that article, from the personal view, it makes no sense to me to change out one partner for another. I’ll encounter the same things with Hannah that I encountered with Courtney; as I would sharing my life with anyone. She’ll have habits that I find endearing one moment and detest the next. She’ll meet some of my needs, but not others. The excitement of a new relationship will pass as we settle in with each other. Ga-ga-in-love-with-each-other stages will come and go over time, with less and less frequency. For a long while I thought if Courtney left or died I wouldn’t seek out another partner. Who the hell wants to start all over with a new person and have to navigate those first couple of years where you both accidently step in em...

If you’ve been reading my blog/newsletter for the past few weeks then you know significant things have occurred in the life of this mind. Four years ago the ego (personal thought system) fell away. I didn’t realize it fully and I spent three and a half years personally in a rather barren place in this mind, though there was peace in the rest of my mind. I did feel done with the world, but I didn’t know what that meant. I just stayed with the feeling, wondering what would come next. The next thing arrived in this mind last summer with a subtle shift from emptiness to a delicious Spaciousness. This was followed by beautiful Golden Light, Love, and Joy filling the Space. Bewilderingly, an effect of this was a romance novel! From there, the Light and the shifts continued. During this time a client in Australia whom I have called Zelda in these articles, but whose real name is Hannah, became a friend as well. We grew closer over several months and began to experience a lot of sync...

“I've been a student of ACIM for four years now. I feel I have been making steady progress in remembering who I am and my relationship to the ‘world’ and ‘others’, but lately I've been hit left, right and center by what I call ‘disappointments’. It seems that everything I once enjoyed about life is either gone, changing for the worse, or just plain a big disappointment. Is this a natural part of waking up, is it aging, or am I completely on the wrong path since I feel this way? I've been talking this over with the Holy Spirit, which feels very comforting, but I can't help but feel sad these days… ” – JB What you feel is typical for a new student of A Course in Miracles . Disillusionment, lack of motivation, lack of interest, depression, etc. often occurs in the first few years. Even though you are still in the intellectual stage, you have learned to question the ego (personal thought system) and your values are changing. The meaning you gave to the things you enj...

The first time I saw her was last August when the Golden Light came into my mind and my first novel came through. There were only brief flashes of her. She was a dynamic, confident, and lighthearted personality. When she was around, the body stood straight and the muscles in its face relaxed. On one occasion, one of her sisters looked curiously at her when she responded to something with uncharacteristic lighthearted wit. “Oh, there she is,” I thought. “Even her sister doesn’t recognize her.” Suddenly, there was a Stranger within animating the self this mind projects. Since the Holy relationship came in April and this mind went through huge shifts in May and June, this new Animator emerges more and more. Over the years, when I was identified with the self, I experienced disorienting changes through personal growth and shifts in self-concepts that had me wondering briefly, “Who am I?” These were changes I felt were in me in my self-identification. But this time, I did not reco...

The ego (personal thought system) comes up with a lot of funny ideas about how the self one projects will show up when they realize Higher Awareness. It’s been implied to me by more than one person that as I rise in consciousness I will become an impersonal automaton. Ha, ha! No. It’s not like that. First, let me explain what I mean by “Higher Awareness”. The Awareness of Truth (Holy Spirit) is in every mind.   Higher Awareness is an individual expression of the Awareness of Truth. It is the awareness/consciousness/perception that replaces the ego in relation to the self. When I am in the Awareness of Truth I am looking inward at Love. When I am in Higher Awareness, I am looking outward from Love at the experience of the self. The difference between the view from lower awareness (the level of the self) and the view from Higher Awareness is stark. It is like the difference between seeing the Himalayas from Nepal and seeing them from the International Space Station. Highe...

“The holy relationship is the expression of the holy instant in living in this world. Like everything about salvation, the holy instant is a practical device, witnessed to by its results. The holy instant never fails. The experience of it is always felt. Yet without expression it is not remembered. The holy relationship is a constant reminder of the experience in which the relationship became what it is.   ” (T-17.V.1) I have written over the years about this mind’s two different experiences of the Holy relationship. One I call “mystical”. The mystical Holy relationship is what Bill and Helen experienced. I did, too, when I first became a student of A Course in Miracles thirty four years ago. I recognized everything written about it in ACIM at the time. That experience was intense, but brief. And, if you have been reading my articles these past two weeks, then you know I am blessed to have another mystical Holy relationship. That one isn’t going anywhere, because I am now ...

Some of you may be having a reaction to my last two articles about the ego (personal thought system) falling away from this mind. Your response may be like what happens after a higher miracle. What I call a higher miracle is an experience where you either see that the Truth is true, that illusion is illusion, or both. Whether or not you experience peace or joy with this experience, it is followed by shock as you realize that what A Course in Miracles teaches is true. It’s not just theory anymore! An ego backlash then follows on the heels of this. The shock and backlash may pass in days or weeks, depending on how advanced you are in your awareness of Truth. The more advanced, the less intense the reaction. Watching the ego fall and this mind rise in consciousness in “real time”, as it were, seems to be having a similar effect on some of my clients and readers. This is what I meant when I said some of you may “ride in my slipstream” in the article about the ego falling away. In es...

He thought he learned willingness, but now he sees that he does not know what the willingness is for. (T-4.I.A.7) Nothing prepared this mind for dropping the ego (personal thought system). ( http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-ego-has-fallen.html) . When it happened I was prepared to handle it, but not for the specific nature of the process I was to go through. That is unique to each mind, because each mind has its own distinct expectations, structures, and habits to undo. The shock and the need for ensuing adjustments, however, do seem universal. The “life” in this mind before last summer when the Golden Light came to stay is over. It was not really a “life”, but a misidentification. So to the part of this mind that was identified with the self (body/personality) and ego (personal thought system), it is as though it “died”. I was very amused to find at the end of May that I wrote an article at the end of April saying the ego falling away is not frightening. I didn’t...